Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

Computer Hackers

Computer hackers are people who gain remote access (typically unauthorized
and unapproved) to files stored in another computer, or even to the
operating system of the computer. In the 1950 and 1960s, hackers were
motivated more by a desire to learn the operating characteristics of a
computer than by any malicious intent. Indeed, in those days hackers were
often legitimate computer programmers who were seeking ways of routing
information more quickly through the then-cumbersome operating system of
computers.

Since then, however, computer hacking has become much more sophisticated,
organized, and, in many cases, illegal. Some hackers are motivated by a
desire to cripple sensitive sites, make mischief, and to acquire
restricted information.

In the late 1990s, several computer hackers attempted to gain access to
files in the computer network at the Pentagon. The incidents, which were
dubbed Solar Sunrise, were regarded as a dress rehearsal for a later and
more malicious cyber-attack, and stimulated a revamping of the
military's computer defenses. In another example, computer hackers
were able to gain access to patient files at the Indiana University School
of Medicine in February 2003.

The threats to civilian privacy and national security from computer
hackers was deemed so urgent that the

Ehud Tenebaum leaves a police station near Tel Aviv, Israel, under
house arrest with two other Israeli teenagers in 1998 pending charges
for the most organized hacker attack ever perpetrated on the
Pentagon's computer system.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

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U.S. government enacted the Cyber-Security Enhancement Act in July 2002,
as part of the Homeland Security measures in the wake of the terrorist
attacks on September 11, 2001. Under this legislation, hackers can be
regarded as terrorists, and can be imprisoned for up to 20 years.

One tool that a hacker can use to compromise an individual computer or a
computer network is a virus. Depending on their design and intent, the
consequences of a virus can range from the inconvenient (i.e., defacing of
a Web site) to the catastrophic (i.e., disabling of a computer network).
Within a few years during the 1990s, the number of known computer viruses
increased to over 30,000. That number is now upwards of 100,000, with new
viruses appearing virtually daily.

Despite the threat that they can pose, computer hackers can also be of
benefit. By exposing the flaws in a computer network, hackers can aid in
the redesign of the

Convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, right, after being released
from the Federal Correction Institute in Lompoc, California, in 2000,
remained under a judge's order barring him from using a
computer for a further three years.